ISP 'censored' anti-war email

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A US broadband provider and a security services company have
been accused of blocking emails relating to an anti-Iraq war
protest.

American online activist David Swanson says the provider,
Comcast, and security services company Symantec, blocked emails
drawing attention to the so-called Downing
Street memo, which activists have seized on as further proof
that the Iraq war was planned well in advance. The leaked memo was
first published in Britain's The Times newspaper.

Swanson, the founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org
website, claims emails sent to and from his subscribers were
blocked for a week as he tried to co-ordinate events around the
United States. He said the events would have had a far bigger
turn-out had the block not been in place.

"We didn't know it, but for the past week, anyone using Comcast
has been unable to receive any Email with
"www.afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the Email," Swanson wrote on
his website.

"Comcast said that ... Symantec refused to lift the block,
because they had supposedly received 46,000 complaints about Emails
with our URL in them. Forty-six thousand! ...Could we see two or
three, or even one, of those 46,000 complaints? No..."

Swanson said he was trying to raise awareness about the memo and
get Americans to lobby the US Congress to inquire into whether
President George W. Bush had lied about the reasons for the Iraq
war.

He said that once one of the activists involved in the campaign
posted Symantec's phone numbers on his site, and Symantec's
communications department received complaints, the block was
removed.

Antoinette Trovato, a Symantec spokeswoman in Australia, said
the company's US office had advised that a spam rule was created
due to an increase in email traffic identified by the Symantec
Probe Network.

"The rule was determined to be too broad and has since been
turned off," she said.